


Pirate Jenny

by RobberBaroness



Category: Treasure Island - Lavery
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Gen, Manipulation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-27
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:08:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26683450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RobberBaroness/pseuds/RobberBaroness
Summary: Bones would have said if his “one-legged fiend” had been a woman, wouldn’t he?
Comments: 6
Kudos: 11





	Pirate Jenny

“Oh, the leg? Funny story about that! Lost it in a fight in a bar in Madagascar. A man put his hands on me, I kicked him, he cut me right through the thigh. Wound got infected, leg had to come off. And then I had to learn to cook in a hurry, or my ship would have left me there!”

Jenny Silver recounted her past with a smile and a laugh, and though the story was unpleasant, her telling of it eased Jim’s mind. The cook wasn’t any kind of monster, just a woman accustomed to hard living. And Bones would have said if his “one-legged fiend” had been a woman, wouldn’t he? He’d meant some brutish pirate hulk of a man, not a slender woman with shaggy brown hair stuffed carelessly into a knitted cap. A lady cook. What could be more innocent than that?

“I was about your age when I ran off to sea,” she said as she began to chop an onion. “Had to dress myself as a boy- I already wore trousers, but I didn’t much care for having to lower my voice every time I talked. It was a bit of a relief when the captain found me out, and an even bigger relief when he didn’t throw me overboard!”

“Smollett said women on a ship are bad luck,” Jim grumbled as she washed off a bunch of carrots.

“Funny!” said Silver, with an odd look on her face. “My old captain used to say the same thing!”

Everything about Jenny Silver was entrancing to Jim. She seemed to exist in an odd half-male half-female state, with her songbird voice and her lanky build. This was a woman who could make herself fit in anywhere, adjust to anything, charm anyone. And she wasn’t treating Jim like a little girl! She was sharing sea stories with her, casually recalling violent scrapes, and all with a disarmingly cheerful attitude.

“Smollett wouldn’t even let me read the map,” Jim said, looking for a bit of sympathy.

“Maps?” Silver’s eyes grew wide. “Well, aren’t you a clever girl! I can just barely read and write my own name.” Jim knew she shouldn’t smile at that admission, but to think that she’d impressed Silver was exhilarating. Her! A scrawny girl from an inn with only the education her grandmother had seen fit to give her!

“If your captain thought women were bad luck,” she ventured, “how did you make him keep you on?”

Silver laughed like a bird chirping.

“He certainly didn’t want to! But I convinced him. I’m very good at convincing people. It’s the most important skill a woman can ever learn.” She sighed, but it didn’t sound sad- it sounded sweet and wistful. “Now I’m just a poor one-legged woman who cooks for a living- but let me tell you, my girl, it means the world to be back on a ship at all. Once you’ve become accustomed to it, you’ll never settle for an honest living again!”

That was a strange thing for her to say, Jim thought. Working on a ship was a perfectly honest way to make a living. But it was obviously a joke, a self-effacing one, and Jim didn’t want Silver to think she had no sense of humor, so she laughed nonetheless. Silver had been her age when she first put to sea. Perhaps Jim herself would someday grow to be like her, a commanding presence with war stories and the scars to prove them.

Silver could chop onions even faster than Jim’s grandmother. The knife seemed less like a tool than an extension of her arm.

“Come on, then!” said the cook. “They sent you down here to help me, so let’s get to it! You know, I think you’re going to be very helpful on this journey…”

Jim couldn’t help but smile at that.


End file.
